Meet Stacey Saed, founder and owner of Annestasis, a local service organization with a compassionate approach to helping clients declutter, downsize, organize and move.
Q: What inspired you to start Annestasis?
A: The genesis of Annestasis was the desire to combine all of my skills and talents and craft a career helping people move beyond their current circumstances. The name Annestasis means to be reborn. It started as a wellness lifestyle coaching service with a healthy home component. What it morphed into was a relocation specialty service company walking people through the trauma of moving into a vibrant new life. The greatest need has been found in the Senior Adult community, but it is really a service for all ages and stages.
Q: What are the greatest needs that you see in the relocation industry?
A:The relocation industry has been treating moving as a logistical function. What is lacking is the human component. Moving is a top five life stressor and it is taxing for everyone involved. Annestasis is present for the decisions that baffle, the tasks that overwhelm and the results that empower. We want to treat our clientele like family during the process of moving or refreshing their existing spaces. Our tagline is “Creating Peace in the Process.”
Q: Describe your relationship with retirement communities.
A: My experience has been very positive. The senior adult living game has changed since my grandparents’ era. The spaces are generous, life giving and beautiful. One of my closest alliances is with OPUS East Memphis. I began conversations with Beth Robertson, the Executive Director, before the ground was broken at this premier property. What I offered is to be a bridge between the magical spaces they provide and the homes/possessions that people had no idea what to do with before they could move. Without a solution, they could see the dream but had no path to get there.
Q: What are the benefits of involving Annestasis in a move to a retirement community?
A: The benefits of using Annestasis are partially practical and partially emotional. We are the hands and feet of those moving and their loved ones who can’t help in this specific way because of time, distance or both. We can make choices, project manage, gather the necessary supplies and vendors and shorten the process from months to days. We have known people who did not have artwork on their walls for months after a move as they were still going through boxes. Languishing in this state can be paralyzing and postpones the joy that awaits them on the other side of a long to-do list. Annestasis knows how to get someone fully home from beginning to end in a week or less, including the magnets on the fridge.
Q: What do you love most about your job?
A: I absolutely love the reveal at the end of hanging the final piece of artwork! That is my happy place – providing those final touches. There are always kind words of praise as the relief rushes over them when we drive away with the last box and bag of trash. They can take a deep breath of relief and very often that means a tearful goodbye to me and my trusty team.
Q: Tell me a little about your staff.
A: We have an incredible team with a variety of professional backgrounds. Each member brings the most important component to the project – compassion. The hard skills of proper packing and organizational techniques can be taught, but a heart that loves people is the most important piece of the puzzle.
Q: Walk us through a recent client’s experience and the step-by-step process moving process.
A: Recently my team and I had the distinct pleasure of helping a couple move out of their home of over four decades into a senior living facility. They couldn’t see how the furnishings they loved in their current home in Midtown would fit into their cottage at OPUS East Memphis. After my initial consultation, I was able to explain our process, take measurements of the property and the proposed pieces, create a “blue tape” floorplan in their new space so they could walk around the possible placement and then put it all into action. We met several times prior to packing day, and it moved like clockwork. We unpacked them, placed everything according to plan, hung the artwork and they were ready to acclimate by week’s end. They said they felt like they were living in a hotel. The things they left behind no longer weighed them down and their existing possessions showed up anew in a fresh light. It was one of the most rewarding opportunities we have experienced.
Native Memphian Stacey Saed created Annestasis to satisfy a need in the Memphis community by creating inviting living and working spaces. When she's not working, she enjoys hiking, meditation, painting and writing. She has a patchwork quilt of professional experience, including a bachelor's degree earned at the age of fifty from the University of Memphis. "Each of my former careers - wealth management, administration, management, interior design and motherhood have given me the tools to be an entrepreneur and the muscle to stick it out when it would have been so much easier to go work for another company," says Saed. She has three college-aged children. "Creating something that is greater than myself and disruptive to the status quo is showing my kids how to rebound after many missteps and wrong turns. They need to see a 'win' and that keeps me pushing forward." Companioning others as they are reborn after relocation into a new season of life is Saed's corporate mission, but she says her children are her "why."
Annestasis is present for the decisions that baffle, the tasks that overwhelm and the results that empower.